Targeting the Local: Policing Clandestine Methamphetamine Production in a Rural US Community

Abstract

AbstractIn the United States, state-based efforts to curtail the spread of methamphetamine (“meth”) have targeted domestic producers through heightened regulation of precursor chemicals used in the clandestine meth-production process. This article examines the impact of these efforts on the exercise of police power in a rural community affected by methamphetamine. As the author shows, the targeting of local meth production has incorporated residents of rural communities into the policing process by variously encouraging and requiring them to adopt a new way of perceiving the local landscape, centred around methamphetamine. Under the new legislation, previously benign objects such as cold medicine, batteries, and drain cleaner have been re-signified as objects with criminal potential that residents of rural communities are called upon to police. This has led to the expansion of police power within and beyond the formal domains of law enforcement. Through the targeting of local production, civic volunteers, pharmacists, retail clerks, natural resource officers, and others have been drawn into the policing of the meth problem. This reveals a key dynamic in the localization of police power: as police power is localized, the local is reimagined in terms of police power.